For 15 years I shared my sharpening stones with my students. Now, my stones hide beneath my bench. Why?
Students tried to turn my sharpening stones into tacos.
Sharpeners who are beginners (or indifferent) tend to work only the middle of a sharpening stone. This activity quickly turns a flat stone into a soup bowl. After a few sharpenings, the stone becomes 100 percent unreliable. And when you go to flatten this stone, you are in for a workout.
So I made a video.
If you have been sharpening for many years you will roll your eyes when you watch this. Don’t. I know you did this, too. If you are a beginning sharpener, watch it with care. It’s only 14 seconds long, but it shows something important. You need to spread out the wear on your sharpening stones with every stroke.
Sharpening stones, especially waterstones, dish quickly. A few ill-placed strokes will set you on a path to wondering what the heck is going on with your edges.
Flat sharpening stones are reliable. Yes, you can deal with a wonky stone if you are experienced. But I always prefer dead flat stones to dead anything-else stones.
So spread out the wear with every stroke. And flatten your stones after every sharpening.
Or don’t. Just don’t use my stones. They are still in hiding. Poor stones.
The office corner in my shop. My stand-up desk, file cabinet, bookcases, catalogs and, yes, a dial telephone on the file cabinet. It has a ring that cuts through any machinery noise.
One of the most difficult tasks when starting a business is pricing your work or product. Many woodworkers, especially those just beginning, seriously underprice their work. Hobbyists, especially, have no idea. Let me tell you, it’s really tough to be at a show next to Joe Basement, who is selling his very nice coffee table. He has no concept of the actual hours he spent, but his $140 worth of wood has turned into a $200 table. Wow, a $60 profit…wrong. The most basic pricing involves the cost of materials + overhead + profit. Let’s take a look at these one at a time.
Materials are your wood, hardware, glue and finishes – anything that ends up in the customer’s possession. When working with a variety of woods, you’ll have to refigure the price for each species. That can run the gamut from a couple of bucks for No. 3 pine or poplar to $60 per board foot for exotics, to more than $100 per sheet for top-grade plywood with fancy veneers (in 2017 dollars, as are all prices in this book).
Working almost exclusively in cherry, and paying roughly the same amount for the past 20 years, makes pricing for me much easier. Not only that, but I get to use leftovers and offcuts for the next project. At this point in my career, I know the exact board footage for all pieces in my catalog. When starting out, you’ll have to do a bit more math. When you come up with the board footage, add 10-20 percent for waste, depending on how fussy or frugal you are regarding knots, defects, sapwood and general waste. Besides the wood, also include screws, hinges, locks, knobs, glides, glass, hangers and your glue and finish of choice. Speaking of hardware, I always buy the top grade. It takes just as long to install a cheap hinge as an expensive one. Cheap hardware will come back to haunt you, and result in unhappy customers.
Buy the best-quality hardware you can get your hands on – including extruded hinges and cast locks. It takes just as long to install cheap hardware as that of highest quality. These are by Whitechapel, Horton Brasses and Ball & Ball.
Overhead is an all-encompassing term that includes the expenses you pay as the cost of doing business, but of which the customer does not take possession. Here is a partial list: your shop building or rent or mortgage, insurance, vehicle, electricity, heat, office supplies, telephone, internet, tools, advertising, freight charges, accounting, postage, licenses and taxes, and a few others that I may have overlooked. The bigger items, such as the mortgage, vehicle and large power tools can be amortized over a long period of time. Don’t, however, forget to include small tools such as routers that need to be replaced, specialty bits and tooling for a specific project, etc. Again, it will be difficult to estimate these costs when first starting, but after a year or more of good bookkeeping, you’ll have a pretty good handle on what it takes to run your shop. Divide the yearly total expenses by 12 to give you a monthly figure, divide that by 30 to give you a daily figure, and divide the last by eight to give you an hourly overhead cost.
Finally, your profit. Yes, we’d all like to make $100 per hour take-home pay, but let’s be reasonable, especially when you’re just starting out. My profit, or hourly wage, when I opened my shop in the mid ’80s was $20 – which I thought was pretty good. It has since gone up considerably, but only after a few years. You can’t start out with astronomical prices when you have no track record, no reputation and no customer base. That comes with time, working efficiently, keeping your nose clean and keeping your customers happy.
A few random thoughts on prices and shop finances in general. First, if you give a customer a price quote, stick with it. You’re only as good as your word, and your word is your reputation. I’ve eaten my fair share of underpriced projects. It’s all part of the learning curve. Customers don’t want to hear “This took a lot longer than I thought….” They want results, not excuses. On the other hand, if a customer request changes for alterations to the original design, then a change in price is warranted. Keep track of any additions or alterations made after the original quote.
I don’t dicker, and I try to be fair. I don’t gouge customers because they drive up in a Mercedes. The same hourly rate applies to everyone. Once that price is established, it’s fixed, unless times and circumstances change. My shop rate is based not just on time, materials, overhead and profit, but also on my experience, craftsmanship and reputation as a craftsperson. When potential customers try to talk my prices down, I tactfully end the conversation. Now they are messing with my self-worth. Remember, once a customer asks for and receives a discount, they will expect one from then on. And word spreads.
My daughter Madeline has settled into her new animal research job on the East coast and told me she is still interested in distributing stickers. I’ve created three new designs for her, and they should be available through her etsy store within a week.
These designs took some digging and some thought. If you don’t like them – or the ideas they embody – that’s cool. But please channel your criticism somewhere else during the holiday season. I just want to to think of hedgehogs and sparkle ponies this month.
Join the R. Michael Burns Troop of Woodworkers for Peace
Burns was one of the founding instructors of the College of the Redwoods (now the Krenov School) with James Krenov. This sticker is based on a flyer and has a nice story behind it. Brendan Gaffney is going to write that story up for us shortly.
Never Despair; Nothing Without Labour
This sticker is taken from a 1905 billhead of Bittner, Hunsicker & Co. The Allentown, Pa., company made hoisery, knit goods and overalls. Thanks to the power of ebay.com, I found two original billheads for sale and purchased them. It’s a delightful and detailed illustration. Plus, I love bees.
Lost Art Press Bandito
This sticker features original art from Indianapolis artist Shelby Kelley. John and I have been fans of Kelley’s work for many years. It’s also available on a T-shirt.
Full details on how to order the stickers through Madeline’s etsy.com store are coming soon. And thanks to everyone who has bought stickers from her – this is the seventh(!) set. Your support helped put her through college with zero debt. As a result, she is now eyeing a doctorate program. But she is insisting on getting a doctorate without any loans.
I am continually impressed with her attitude and drive. And you played a part, too.
My father and I used to travel a lot together. We’d pick a city – St. Louis, Würzburg, Heidelberg, Charleston, Savannah – and spend several days eating our way through the city and visiting every museum and architecture wonder we could find.
One of the last big trips we took was to Hampton, N.H., to take a class at Mike Dunbar’s The Windsor Institute. When I attended the school in 2010, I had been making chairs for seven years and had already taken two chairmaking classes. But I was still trying to find my place as a chairmaker. I wanted to build Welsh stick chairs, but most of the first-class instruction was for Windsor chairs.
So I bought my dad a spot in the class and we headed there with John, my partner at Lost Art Press, to make a sackback chair.
It was the last time my dad and I got to work in the shop together, so my memories of the week are kinda wet with emotion. But I can say that the instruction from Mike and the staff at The Windsor Institute was top notch. The place, closed since 2016, ran like a well-oiled machine with no bumps or awkward moments. Lots of jokes and a relaxed pace.
The chair I built belongs to my wife, Lucy, who sits in it every night for dinner. My dad’s chair is still in his house in Charleston, S.C.
Recently, Mike began posting a series of videos on YouTube that outline how he makes a sackback chair. The videos are free – I believe he is hoping sponsors and eyeballs will help fund the project. They aren’t slick videos, and for that I am grateful. They are tightly edited (also grateful) and shot with an eye to instruct you more than dazzle.
Check out his YouTube channel here. And if you want the book that goes with the video, you … oops it is sold out at ShopWoodworking.com and Amazon.com at this moment. Maybe they’ll restock. The book’s title is “Make a Windsor Chair with Mike Dunbar,” which you can still find from some suppliers with a little searching. You can also follow Mike on Facebook here.
Anyway, if you are interested in making a Windsor chair, Mike’s instruction is first rate. And the chair, an original design by Mike, is very graceful.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. You can still read my blog entries from that week in Hampton. Here are the links:
Inside the newly restored Cincinnati Museum Center
This Saturday – Dec. 8 – we’re opening our doors to the public between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. We’ll have all our books available for sale (credit cards, check or cash welcome) plus a big pile of blemished books at 50 percent off (cash only, please).
We have two cases of Christian Becksvoort’s new book, “Shaker Inspiration,” for you to check out.
And if you ask to “see the clock,” we’ll take you to the back room and give you a homemade Kentucky beverage. It’s sweet and takes four hours to make. Plus cookies!
The workshop is a manic zoo this week. I’m trying to finish up a Monticello bookcase in walnut and clear pine that has been held up by Crises Nos. 634 and 645 of 2018. I’m pushing to get all the boxes assembled by Saturday. There are six units, all dovetailed with a mitered dovetail on the front edge. Megan is processing almost 300 board feet of poplar for an upcoming Dutch tool chest class. And Brendan is building a stand for some glass bottles for a holiday bazaar.
So we are greatly looking forward to Saturday when we can put down our tools for a few hours and chat. Heck, we might even ask you to “see the clock” a few times.
The storefront is at 837 Willard St. in Covington, Ky. It’s a nice historic neighborhood filled with good restaurants and bars. And if you want to add a special stop on your visit, I recommend a visit to the newly reopened Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. This gorgeous Art Deco structure (photo above) has been restored and just reopened.
Even if you don’t want to go to one of the museums inside, I recommend you tour the lobby and public spaces (there’s no admission to the public spaces). You can buy a local beer and walk around and enjoy the views.
They have a nice clock there as well (newly restored), but it’s not as sweet as ours.
